If You Didn’t Read Bernie Sanders’ Op-Ed, You Have Some Homework…

The world is still buzzing and shaking from Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, as leading up the referendum, polls indicated ‘Brexit’ wasn’t going down…Now that it has, corporate talking heads, intellectuals and even your average Joe Sixpack, have been debating and speculating on how this could have happened.

Well, one of the more insightful and compelling responses that’s been offered, came courtesy Mr. Bernie Sanders. Recently the progressive titan wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, which was, well, a must read.

Here is just some of what Sanders had to say:

Surprise, surprise. Workers in Britain, many of whom have seen a decline in their standard of living while the very rich in their country have become much richer, have turned their backs on the European Union and a globalized economy that is failing them and their children.

And it’s not just the British who are suffering. That increasingly globalized economy, established and maintained by the world’s economic elite, is failing people everywhere. Incredibly, the wealthiest 62 people on this planet own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population — around 3.6 billion people. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the whole of the bottom 99 percent. The very, very rich enjoy unimaginable luxury while billions of people endure abject poverty, unemployment, and inadequate health care, education, housing and drinking water.

Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States? You bet it could.

During my campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I’ve visited 46 states. What I saw and heard on too many occasions were painful realities that the political and media establishment fail even to recognize.

In the last 15 years, nearly 60,000 factories in this country have closed, and more than 4.8 million well-paid manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Much of this is related to disastrous trade agreements that encourage corporations to move to low-wage countries.

Again, it’s mandatory reading, so you should head to the Times to finish the editorial. While we can all debate as to whether Britain should have remained in the EU, in its current form, no one should really be that shocked Brexit has taken place.

People are finally realizing the neoliberal shite has hit the fan, and they’re not having it any longer. Focusing this anger and frustration into progressive developments, however, is the task at hand. One which, Mr. Sanders, has been doing a pretty, pretty, good job of doing.